“What the hell?”
Another body was flung over the gap, landing on its side near the edge of the Palace roof. It was another grin, and it was getting to its feet, one arm hanging uselessly.
Renfield reached for the two-way radio and shouted the code word for grins inside the Palace Hotel.
“Breech! On the roof! Breech! Breech! Breech!”
The grin was coming closer. Renfield didn’t have any weapons at all. Why would he have needed them? He was on the goddamned roof!
He grabbed his radio as another grin was launched from the roof of the building next door. This one hit the raised edge of the Palace roof and slid out of sight as it fell down into the street. Renfield ran for the door that opened on a stairway down into the hotel, thinking, bungee cords, they must be using bungee cords or something like that to catapult grins across Annie Street. He heard another thud and looked back, seeing a grin lurch to its feet, one leg dragging behind it.
Both grins were bloody from their falls, and deadly to anyone who was not immune.
He stepped into the stairway, tried to pull the door closed, and cursed. The door and the jamb were covered in layers of duct tape to stop the door from latching shut when closed. It was one of the doors that had been opened with a master keycard weeks ago and had been rigged to stay open— who could have anticipated an attack from the roof?
I was already running up a flight of stairs at this point, holding a two-way, listening to Renfield as he screamed into his radio and wishing I was in better shape as young men and women in the Wrecking Crew raced past me.
By the time I reached the roof, Renfield was standing back from the door and protectively cradling his radio as he watched the Wrecking Crew get to work with pry bars and long handled axes. The rest of the crew reached the roof a minute later and then all ten of them were fighting to put down five grins when Renfield pointed to the sky and said, “Oh no.”
It looked like a huge balloon arcing up and then down toward us. I saw Haise look over the edge of the roof next door and grin down at us triumphantly, his short blond hair glowing like a halo.
The heavy-duty garbage bag struck the roof of the Palace and burst open, showering Renfield and me and every member of the Wrecking Crew, our most fit and aggressive fighters, with the blood of grins.
I heard the Wrecking Crew coughing and gagging and heard a few of them cursing, and then they began to twitch and snap at the air as the parasites in the blood invaded their brains.
As more grins were catapulted onto the Palace roof I shoved Renfield toward the stairs and keyed my radio, shouting, “Emergency evacuation!”
Evacuating the hotel was something we had discussed in weekly meetings among the entire group, but we had not yet carried out any drills since going out into the street as a group was deemed too risky.
As we ran down the stairs Renfield told me about the message he had received.
We aren’t ready, I thought, realizing we had to get out of the hotel, out of the city, as soon as possible.
“We have until midnight,” Renfield had whispered fiercely behind me as we came down the stairs.
Fifteen minutes later I was opening a door and stepping onto New Montgomery Street. I was holding my sword. Benjamin and Randall were on either side of me with their handguns. Benjamin had four rounds left. Randall had a full clip of fifteen rounds. There aren’t any places to buy bullets in the city of San Francisco.
Most of us were also carrying go-bags, large and small. At minimum each contained a few pull-tab cans of food, two bottles of water, a disposable flashlight, a warm sweater or sweatshirt, and a jackknife. Jillian had been an absolute bitch about keeping go bags handy. Just in case. Most of the adults in decent shape were carrying larger bags, with more food and water, extra clothing and blankets, and first aid supplies.
More than half of the people in the hotel refused to leave; they were convinced they would be safer in the hotel. The fact that night was coming probably fed their fear. One of them had one of our three guns.
I was relieved to see that Dr. Anders was with us. I would have taken her by force if she had decided to stay behind.
As I ushered the crowd out onto the street, a small group of Haise’s people rounded the corner and ran at us.
I held out my sword and let a man run into it. The old steel blade sank into his diaphragm and he looked at it curiously. I pulled the blade free and swung it at the arm of another attacker who was swinging a length of wood. The sword cut into flesh and bone and made a sickening sound when I pulled it free.
It was a melee. People were swinging weapons, fighting with fists, and inside the hotel I heard the first screams as the grins made their way down the stairs. Standing to one side was Renfield, hunched over and cradling his radio as he stayed clear of the fight.
A woman screamed behind me. It was Rose Lubisch. Kalife Montagne was dragging her away by the hair. Before I could move a grin darted out from the hotel. I heard Soledad Morales scream and realized the grin was Ed Mariano, the leader of the Wrecking Crew. He opened his mouth and bit into the back of Montagne’s neck. Montagne wailed and his people scattered, half of them running down the street and the rest running into the Palace, to their doom.
Now most of my people began running in fright, men and woman and children moving in twos and threes down Market Street in the direction of the Ferry Building.
Benjamin stepped forward and raised his gun, trying to get a clear shot at Ed. Montagne let out a series of wet coughs and before I could pull Rose away from him Ed Mariano leaped at me. I was knocked into Benjamin and all three of us went down. Benjamin got to his feet, kicked Ed in the face, and then I slashed Ed’s neck wide open.
I turned and saw Rose lying on her back, her hands cradling her huge belly. Montagne was standing over her and… I literally had to shake my head to clear it, and look again. Montagne was furiously jerking off on Rose. He was spitting blood and saliva and phlegm and pulling a flaccid cock, all in a desperate mindless drive to spread the parasite. I brought my sword up and over and cleaved Montagne’s head like a gourd. It took some effort to pull the blade free.
Rose was using a shirttail to wipe her face and hands clean. “Am I sick?” She asked it again and again as I helped her to her feet.
I looked at her closely. “No,” I said. “You got lucky. You’re fine.”
We caught up with the rest of our group a block away, and I told them part of the plan I had worked out with Renfield and Randall some time ago.
“We’re heading for Pier 39 as quickly and as quietly as we can,” I said. “There should still be boats there, sailboats, dinghies, anything that can get us out of the city.”
There were a lot of people who lived on Pier 39, and other piers, year-round. They rented boats or rented the slips for their boats, and aside from the aggravation of gawking tourists and occasionally damp quarters it was like living in a studio apartment. There were also privately owned small watercraft there… the last time I was down there, but that was a few years back. I hoped there would be something, anything that could get us out of the city.
I didn’t tell anyone how little time we had. They would panic. I didn’t tell anyone where I hoped we could land. I let them assume we were heading for Marin or the East Bay. And I didn’t tell them what I had learned from Renfield recently; that there were armed patrols from an ambiguously-named Unified Containment Task Force patrolling the shoreline from the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco Bay.